The Centre has decided to shelve its plan to set up a National Industrial Corridor Authority (NICA), the proposed nodal body to oversee work relating to all national ‘industrial corridors’, in the face of hurdles in implementation.
The Authority has been put on the back burner due to the delay foreseen by the Prime Minister's Office and the Cabinet Secretariat in getting Parliamentary approval for it to be conferred ‘statutory’ status on the lines of the National Highways Authority of India, official sources told The Hindu. The plan to set up NICA was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his maiden Budget speech in July 2014.
A fresh Cabinet note has been sent recently to the Ministries concerned, seeking comments on a plan to make the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC) the coordinating body for corridors, to move ahead with proposals relating to corridors in the works, government sources said. Making DMICDC the coordinating agency only needs a Cabinet nod, it is learnt, and is easier than obtaining Parliamentary approval for NICA.
The Centre’s initial plan was to go in for a Constitutional amendment and ensure passage of a new law – a ‘NICA Act’ on the lines of ‘NHAI Act’ – in Parliament. The aim was to grant NICA overarching powers including primacy over State bodies on all aspects of ‘industrial corridors’ thus allowing it comprehensive operational freedom.
The Constitutional amendment was to remove doubts on whether the topic ‘industrial corridor’ falls under the ‘State List’ or ‘Union List’ of Constitution. Currently, ‘industries’ form part of the State List, except those mentioned as ‘industries’ under the Union List -- such as those so declared by law, for ‘war’, ‘defence’ and ‘in public interest’. The amendment was proposed to ensure that all matters pertaining to ‘national industrial corridors’ come under the Union List and this would in turn prevent conflicts with State authorities and ensured better Centre-State coordination for expediting proposals, the sources said.
The earlier plan was also to subsume the DMICDC and DMIC Project Implementation Trust under NICA. But this too has been put off due to complications involved in transferring to NICA the 26 per cent stake of Japanese government-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation in DMICDC, according to sources. Besides DMIC, other proposed corridors include those linking Amritsar-Kolkata, Bengaluru-Mumbai, Chennai-Bengaluru, and Visakhapatnam-Chennai. As per the new plan to make DMICDC the nodal agency, its head will have the powers to approve proposals relating to corridors.
These will then be forwarded to the DMIC Trust for final clearance.
The Trust — currently managed by the Secretaries of Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and that of NITI Aayog — could be expanded to include the Secretaries of Shipping, Road Transport and Urban Development (for including ‘smart cities’ in these corridors), the sources said.
Meanwhile, discussions are on to get the NICA registered as a Society under the Societies Act (without any statutory status) so that it can at least start functioning without delay.
DMICDC's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director A K Sharma said the NICA plan was still “work in progress.” The Corporation has been sharing its expertise to help finalise plans related to other corridors, he said. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce Chairman Chandan Mitra said a national body like NICA may be the long-term goal, but was not needed at present as work on the ground had not really begun on corridors barring Delhi-Mumbai. The NICA was planning to offer legal certainty on issues relating to corridors to investors and multilateral agencies like Japan International Cooperation Agency and JBIC.
Correction and clarifications: A K Sharma's designation was given as DMICDC chief operating officer and managing director, he is Chief Executive Officer & MD.
